Eskimos and Aleuts: Their Origins and Evolution

An attempt to show how physiological & cultural adaptation facilitated the evolutionary success of the Eskimo-Aleut stock. Linguistic characterization, Anangula, the earliest known site of Eskimo-Aleut stock, the 4,000-yr-old stratified village cite of Chaluka, faunal remains of the Chaluka site, the Bering Strait region of the culture, adaptation to cold & glare, longevity, blood-group evidence of origins, discontinuous variations, & Sinanthropus & modern Mongoloids are discussed for this group. In recent times there is good evidence from Japan, Alaska & Greenland that changes in morphology have taken place within a relatively short period. As a distinctive group in their present form, Mongoloids represent a recent evolutionary development that has occurred within the past 15,000 yrs; they do share more discontinuous traits with middle-Pleistocene Sinanthropus than members of any other living racial divisions, though Sinanthropus is clearly diff from a modern Mongoloid. Inferences concerning long-term connections must remain tentative in view of the small number of fossil remains, the great time spans, & the deficiencies in our knowledge of the modes of inheritance of many traits. However, when we find that signif diff's have developed, over a short time span, between closely related & contiguous peoples, as in Alaska & Greenland, & when we consider the vast diff's that exist between remote groups such as Eskimos & Bushmen, it seems justifiable to conclude the Sinanthropus belongs within the same diverse species. E. Weiman.